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The Many Types of Oil Painting Surfaces

Oil paintings can be painted on a variety of surfaces (also called supports). These can be canvas, panels, paper, wood, metal, plus many others. The reason they are sometimes called supports is because the surface “supports” the medium the image is painted with.

Here are some interesting bullet points about the more common types of oil painting surfaces:

Stretched Canvas is:

the most common support for oils used by modern day artists

a tightly woven flexible material made from cotton, linen, or other synthetic material that is stretched across a wooden or metal stretcher bar frame

can be purchased already primed and stretched onto stretcher bars or it can be purchased in bulk rolls that the artist cuts up into smaller pieces and stretches onto the frame

easier to store and travel with since it takes up less room than stretched canvases

also is more durable and less easily damaged than stretched canvases

preferred by many artists for their smaller paintings

an ideal option for painting on location because they are light weight and also sunlight will not be able to shine through the back

Canvas Paper is:

a flexible surface mostly used for small sketches, color notes, and other purposes

not a favorable surface to paint on because it is too fragile and will not last through the yearsNote: Works painted on canvas paper must undergo extreme restorative and conservative treatments, usually within a few decades.

available in various paper qualities—

100% cotton: top of the quality scale, the paper is made entirely of cotton

Rag paper: some rag content is included in the paper, often mixed with linters or wood cellulose

Wood free or high alpha cellulose or wood sulfite: the highest grade of wood pulp paper

Wood Panel Canvas is:

a rigid surface for artists made from poplar, oak, linden, pine, cedar or various other hardwoods, like mahogany or walnutNote: Other types of woods theses panels are made from includes plywood, fiberboard, Masonite, and particleboard.

the best for painting when they are well seasoned, air-dried quarter-sawn hardwoods to avoid warping, shrinking, as this causes them to hold paint betterNote: It is very important for wood panels to be well aged to prevent shrinking and warping that might occur from exposure to the water content present in some paints.

Metal Panel Canvas is:

a rigid surface that requires an oil primer to prepare it to support artist paintsNote: This type of surface does not fair well with liquid (water base) primers.

comes in various types of fine art metals — aluminum, brass, and copper